Page:The academic questions, treatise de finibus, and Tusculan disputations.djvu/39

xxxii The limits of this volume forbid more than the preceding very brief sketch of the chiefs of the ancient philosophy. For a more detailed account the reader is referred to the Biographical Dictionary edited by Dr. Smith, from which valuable work much of this sketch has been derived. The account of Socrates has been principally derived from Mr. Grote's admirable history of Greece: in which attention has so successfully been devoted to the history of philosophy and the sophists, that a correct idea of the subject can hardly be acquired without a careful study of that work.

It was intended to subjoin a comparison of the systems of the different sects, but it would take more space than can be spared; and it is moreover unnecessary, as, the distinctive tenets of each having been explained, the reader is supplied with sufficient materials to institute such a comparison for himself. He will not wonder that men without the guidance of revelation should at times have lost their way in speculations beyond the reach of human faculties, but will the more admire that genius and virtue which manifested itself in such men as Socrates, Plato, and Cicero, for the perpetual enlightenment of the human race.